Lukas Manuel Winter

• How technique shapes narrative in animation
• Tutor: Francesco Rosso

Filmmaking in general and animation in particular has been on the forefront of technical advance from its inception. It also has been a form of expression for one of the oldest arts of human history – that of telling stories. Some industry professionals would argue that storytelling should be the main goal of animation and technique serve merely as a tool. Yet it can be observed that animation film makers often produce particular types of narratives in which technique and story form an inseparable whole, a realm not accessible if storytelling alone is considered first and foremost. The special intrigue of this narrative shaped by technique and how it can be achieved is the subject of examination in this thesis.

In it, I try to identify and describe all possible ways an animated film’s technique can shape and enhance its storytelling with the aid of compelling examples from existing films. In addition to my own analysis, I have conducted interviews with authors of some of those films in order to gain insights into the relationship of technical decisions and storytelling decisions during their development process. Secondly, I try to distil this information in each category into a set of approaches that can be helpful to myself and other animation authors who seek to find meaning in and express meaning through a technique.

A separate section has been dedicated to my own search and development of a technique for digital replacement animation and the motivations for this work stemming from the theoretical framework of the first part.

• Dry lives (2022)
• Tutor(s): Francesco Rosso
• digital replacement animation using scanned autumn leaves and paper
• 16:9, 2”

In replacement animation, the malleability of a material is not bounded by its physical nature but by the multitude of unique but similar shapes, colours and textures of its specimens. In ‘Dry lives’, the theory of malleability of image collections has been applied in a computer-aided process to the creation of an – sometimes more, sometimes less – abstract animation set to the music of Tallinn-based guitarist Jorge Arena.

• Second Breakfast
• Tutor(s): Priit Pärn, Olga Pärn
• 16:9, 3″50′

The gentle warmth of morning. This desire – is it love?
The vigor! The passion! A fatal blunder!
It’s time for breakfast.

Sound: Björn Norralt
Music: Robert Felix Menczel